Cape Sierra Hotel Freetown

... price to pay for this sort of vacation, a vacation of complete freedom. Brienne, Astride, Kim and I decided to visit Sierra Leone for Astride's birthday. I also just really needed to get away from the village for awhile. I'd been there since Senegal in February and was suffering from "hut fever". Astride's birthday isn't until June but we wanted to take the free World Food Program flight which might be ending soon :( and rainy season will be in full swing ...

... as i sat in Shark's hotel restaurant waiting for my 10,000 Leone chicken shawarma, i knew what i must do. Saturday morning, i woke up early (not too early, mind you, after all, i'm still kind of on vacation) to beat the 90 degrees that tend to hit by around 9am (damn that equator and its equator...er...-ness). Family Kingdom Hotel in Freetown is right across the street from where the ocean lives, so i laced up the runners and hit the beach (road ...

... fro breakfast. We later found out that, once a month everyone (apart from foreigners), has to spend the morning cleaning the streets. Apparently this was announced on the radio the previous day. Leaving Sierra Leone was a very difficult decision, but undoubtedly the right thing for us to do. I am still doing some work for FOWED remotely and will hopefully keep in touch with Sophie, the Director of the organisation. The trip back was a little different ...

... and even regular commuters could not   estimate the time to the next major town in Guinea (Conakry) - Labe.    The most optimisitc offering was to leave at sunrise and arrive at   sundown.  (The least optimistic suggested we might witness a 2nd   sunrise on route.) So, the next morning, at the crack of dawn, we got to the bus park,   found the car, and ... waited!  After the obligatory 3 hour delay, we   crammed ourselves onto the back ...

... unnecessary but he was after some 'assistance'. Taking the ferry instead of the helicopter resulted in a trip of some 4 hours to the hotel instead of the few minutes the helicopter would afford. One of the first through the arrivals, we had to wait for others to arrive at the ferry before it would leave at the scheduled time. A pleasant 45min trip enjoying the river breeze, but then a good hour or more fighting the Freetown traffic down its narrow roads to reach the hotel. The ...

... tarmac highway which last for around 10 miles and then it is bone shaking dirt track pretty much all the way to Bo. The trip up country takes us through some pretty amazing and varied scenery, savannah, hills, rainforest, bamboo forests, rice paddies etc. It is really sad to see the burnt out villages along the way, a remnant of the civil war. Many are now being rebuilt and it is easy to pick these out as they have straw roofs rather than the preferred ...

... with his friends!! We also discussed Constance, the 11 year old daughter of GGM board member Janet. Constance sustained a playground injury at the age of 5 which actually fractured her left upper arm. No x-rays were taken until 3 year after the injury when chronic infection set in which persists to this day living with constant pain. He agreed to do the surgery if we could arrange for overnight shipping of Gentamycin antiobiotic beads (strips) from the US to implant ...

... the GGM staff who has a deformity of her left arm due to a childhood accident which was never reset properly. So much to do. The day concluded with a taped radio intervew of the activities of GGM-SL and the GGM-USA so we will get wide spread coverage on at least two broadcast shows. We then were stuck in traffic for about 3 hours trying to make our way back to the GGM office for a board-meeting ...

... out a plastic bat and ball from our magical suitcases and what a sight to see. The guards let us and more than a dozen children into the gated, locked car holding area and a crowd gathered behind the bars to watch the crazy Americans teach the kids baseball...and the kids won hands down. As Mambud said, "Now THAT'S mission work!" We boarded the ferry at 10:30 headed for Freetown in "1st Class". The following pictures show the ...

... to ****, when in 1991 the Revolutionary United Front initiated the civil war by attacking villages in the east of the country near the bord** of Lib**ia. Decapitation of heads of community lead**s wh**e on spikes. Tens of thousands of people w**e killed and 2 million people fled the country into neighbouring countries. It would seem that the rebel lead** in Lib**ia, Mr Taylor, was financing the RUF to destabilise the country with the aim of getting his hands on the ...